The flurry of movement in the healing rooms was deceptive, as a type of oppressive silence dominated. Only the groans of the Elves with the gravest injuries managed to break through, and the occasional attempts at words of comfort from the healers tending swiftly to their patients. Steam and freshly ground herbs wafted through the air. Strips of linen bandages and wet cleaning cloths held in steady hands passed over sullied Elven skin.
Lady Anarrima cleaned her hands of the blood of the Elf she just aided and looked around to determine who she should see next. She froze briefly when her eyes landed on the pair of ellith clinging to an Elf she knew to be one of her nephew's body servants, Maethon. The three figures were hardly recognizable, their hair and clothes matted with dirt and blood, but she picked out Elluin's eyes across the short distance and rushed over to the group.
"Elluin, what happened?" Anarrima asked, gently draping one of her arms around her own shoulders, relieving the unsteady Maethon of the burden. She did not wait for the reply as she led Elluin to a separate room, having noted grimly that her dress would likely have to be cut off completely to treat her many obvious wounds. She gestured for Maethon to follow her with the other elleth.
Met with only silence, Anarrima spared a glance and her heart sank as she saw the thinly masked horror haunting Elluin's eyes.
There were five beds in this healing room, reserved for ellith. Only one was occupied thus far, by an elleth in a drug-induced sleep, her tended injuries hidden under a blanket. Anarrima gently led Elluin to sit on the next bed; Maethon helped the other elleth lie on another.
"Elluin's mother, Linalda," he murmured in answer to Anarrima's questioning glance.
"Thank you, Maethon. Get yourself seen to, now," the lady ordered, immediately shifting her attention to Linalda, whose breaths came irregularly through the pain, as her condition seemed more severe.
"Maethon." Elluin's soft voice halted her friend. Despite her shakiness, she held his gaze steadily for the moment it took her to say, "Thank you."
The ellon flashed her the briefest of small smiles as he nodded his acknowledgment and then briskly limped out of the room, eager to leave the healer to her work.
King Thranduil scanned the forest once more as he cleaned his sword, finally satisfied that the threat had been completely eliminated. All the wounded had been helped to the healers and soldiers had already swept the surrounding forest to ensure all the Orcs were dead. Wagons were lined up to receive the growing pile of Orc bodies to be hauled away and burned. Fallen Elves had already been carried to the palace to be prepared for burial.
These orders were mechanical and easy, Thranduil darkly mused. It was easier to be a battle leader than a king. He took heart from the forest that now sighed in the wind around him, sharing in its attempt to reclaim its peace. He hoped again that he had enough strength and wisdom to deal with the aftermath of this strange attack. He resisted the un-kingly urge to rest against a tree—an unmistakable hint at his exhaustion.
Captain Telior approached at a jog and saluted, his blood-stained armor dull in the torchlight. "My king," he said hurriedly, "we have captured the leader of the forces." Thranduil moved to go with him and the captain wasted no time leading the king closer to the Old Forest Road. "He was hard to find at first," Telior continued. "He hid once his Orc guards were overcome."
They did not have to walk far. By the time they reached the area, Thranduil had mentally stepped out of his warrior's role and back into that of the Elvenking. In his heart, he again accepted the privilege of responsibility for the wood-Elves of Greenwood and prepared himself to meet the source of the attack on his people.
Thranduil seethed as he studied the leader. The king's soliders admitted that he held out long against capture, although the sag of the Man's shoulders and the sheen of sweat on his skin betrayed how taxing the ordeal had been for him. Thranduil realized that this was the sorcerer responsible for the spells of concealment. It was a significant feat for a mortal, and now he was too fatigued to attempt any more magic. Even in defeat, his hands bound behind him and kneeling with the hand of an Elven soldier on each of his shoulders, the Man looked defiantly pleased with himself.
"What are you called?" Thranduil asked him in the Common Tongue. Fatigue from the battle against both physical and magical forces started waving over his body, dampening his outward fury so that he sounded deceptively calm.
"My name matters not," the Man answered.
Thranduil waited for him to continue, but no elaboration came. "Is there, then, another with whom I should speak? Someone of more importance, perhaps — important enough to warrant a name?" He managed to keep the mocking tone out of his voice.
"Names will not save you, you floundering fool," the sorcerer spat. "Do with me as you will. My purpose has been served."
"What purpose?" Thranduil probed.
The Man remained silent, but a sneer crept across his face.
"Very well," Thranduil said dismissively. "You will remain in our care until such a time as you decide to divulge more information. Is there aught you would say to me before you are taken away?"
The captive's face dropped, apparently having expected death and thereby avoidance of the torture Thranduil's comment seemed to suggest. "You will get no information from me," he said loudly enough to hint at his fear. "You may as well kill me now."
Thranduil smirked humorlessly. It became obvious to him that the Man expected torture if imprisoned — a natural conclusion from someone who was allied with evil. He would receive nothing of the sort at the hands of the Elves; there were other ways to convince a prisoner to confess his knowledge. Considering what this leader had done, however, Thranduil was not above toying with this fear.
"It does not please me to kill you, at present," said the Elvenking. In a swift movement, he bent down to pin the Man with his gaze a few inches from his face. "I may grant your request for death more quickly if you cooperate." Just as swiftly, he straightened and turned away after hearing the captive swallow hard. "You are a rather miniscule creature despite whatever authority you had over those Orcs we destroyed. I name you Nibnadan. For now, 'Little Man,' you will be left in peace."
Thranduil instructed his soldiers in their own tongue to search him thoroughly to ensure no magical devices were hidden on his person. Despite the doubt that had entered his eyes, the Man made no verbal protest as the soldiers saluted and forcefully took him away. Only once they had disappeared between the trees did Thranduil allow the scowl of anger back onto his face. There would be time for councils and interrogations later. The business of battle had first to be concluded.
Thranduil strode back toward the palace, trailed by Telior and a growing number of available soldiers. Although nothing as yet suggested it would be the case, he gave orders for patrols to visit all the scattered villages in the realm to ensure there had been no other attacks. He was relieved to find General Cembeleg and Sulros waiting for him at the entrance to the palace grounds, noting that his body servant had changed and had a bandage around his forearm. They fell into step with their king as he walked toward the main hall.
"Sire, I am glad to see you are well," Cembeleg said. His tone held its usual gruffness but the message was unusual in revealing how much he had worried for his king.
Thranduil nodded in acknowledgment, deciding not to take the time to reflect on those of his people who had fared worse. "Was the defeat absolute?" he asked simply.
"I sent forces after the two groups that broke off in retreat, my king. I have instructed them to send updates regularly."
"Good."
"Sire, we had warning," Cembeleg said. "An elleth named Turiel was responsible for having the message sent to prepare the bulk of our forces in advance of the enemy's unveiling."
"I know her," Thranduil said. "Where is she?"
"Awaiting your pleasure in the throne room, sire," Sulros broke in. "I thought the king would like to see her."
"Yes," Thranduil confirmed. "General, you are dismissed to oversee the reports." Cembeleg saluted and walked off.
Galion met them before the doors of the palace. Relief was obvious on his face as his assessing eyes swept over the king, disguised behind a deep bow.
"Sire, the refugees are being cared for," the steward said. "And a bath is ready in your chambers."
"Good," Thranduil said. "I will request an inventory in the throne room presently." Galion bowed again and allowed the king to stride past. He could read the king's exhaustion in his tone and movements as few others could, but there was nothing to be done about it now.
Once they reached the royal chambers, Telior started to remove Thranduil's armor as Sulros finished preparing the bath. "Sire," the captain ventured, "I commend you for your skill in breaking the spell. If you had not done so, the fight would surely have reached the palace. We would not have been as successful against an invisible enemy."
"The magic was well concealed," Thranduil said, the fatigue filtering into his voice. "Make sure the prisoner is well guarded."
"Yes, sire." Telior rushed to complete his job and took the king's soiled armor with him as he left the room.
Sulros knew the king would not spend long in the bath and wasted no time in scrubbing just the obviously dirty spots, both of them working simultaneously to finish more quickly. Over the years, they had found that Orc blood seemed to seep into impossible places, splattering between the smallest gaps in armor and seeping through cloth and leather to stick to the skin. Sulros had always thought it to be the Orcs' final revenge — an ugly reminder of their destructive and pervasive presence in Middle Earth.
The servant had attended to the king in countless similar situations before and knew that he was not eager to converse. But now that most of the blood was worked off, he would listen. He thought back to that dreadful day when he began service as Thranduil's body servant, on the first day of the War of the Last Alliance. King Oropher had led that disastrous charge against the enemy forces. Thranduil had barely managed to escape with his life, somehow finding the strength to call out the order for the fraction of the remaining Silvan Elves to retreat and regroup.
Sulros had been a young soldier, then...far too young. His heart had been burning to exact destruction on the Dark Lord who had threatened the lives of his people — a fire that was rapidly quenched after that charge. He remembered standing in the middle of that accursed battlefield, surrounded by his dead comrades, trembling in sorrow, anger, fear, and disbelief. Thranduil's voice had reached him through the haze of his tumultuous emotions, and his feet carried him through the carnage back to camp.
There had been no one at the prince's side. His generals and captains had swiftly begun accounting for the remaining forces and reorganizing the squadrons. The soldiers who had attended to him had perished with the rest. Sulros had hardly thought, simply obeying his instinct to leave his diminished squadron, walk right up to Thranduil, kneel silently at his feet for a long moment, then reverently gesture to the royal tent. To him, Thranduil was an unshakeable link to life and the present, and the promise of a future.
After every battle, Sulros had scrubbed through the grief and tried to repay the hope that his new king had given him in that dark moment over three hundred years ago. But what hope could a simple servant give to an Elvenking? He had soon learned that what comforted Thranduil most was hearing of the most mundane tasks that were done without his notice — tasks of those that assumed all would soon be well and life would continue. In the days of the Siege of Mordor, Sulros had prattled on about what occupied the other common soldiers and servants, from restitching the worn seams of tents, to trapping game on the outskirts of the encampment, to trying different oils for maintaining bowstrings.
Sulros knew that Thranduil's sorrow was less tonight, after the invisible enemy's attack, than during the War that made him king. But he was still grieving and exhausted.
"The Silvans around the palace are already praising Turiel's intuition," Sulros decided to say, careful to keep his eyes off the king's face. "Many of the guards could feel something was amiss, but she was the first to realize what the magic was. We saw how quick she was at reading the mountains and the trees on our journey to Rivendell. It was fortunate, indeed, that she had been walking in the forest." He dumped a bucket of warm water over the king to rinse off the soap and held up a drying cloth for him.
"Since we are in mid-spring, the fall harvest store rooms were empty," Sulros continued as he sat Thranduil down on a stool and started drying his hair. "Galion used Elluin's idea again and had partitions and cots brought in for the refugees to use until they can return home. Many of the council members went to help them settle in. Lord Derion took charge, for the most part."
Sulros handed the king his breeches and, once they were on, slipped a light shirt over the king's head, setting him down again to brush out his hair, now a straw color in its dampened state.
"Lady Anarrima sent word that the healing rooms are well stocked, except for bandages," the servant resumed, working as gently as he could through the tangles. "The palace runners have been in the minor dining hall, cutting up old linens. It is a useful task that keeps the young ones out of the way and they are eager to do it. More palace servants have been called to take over their duties as messengers, and many other citizens have come to assist the healers. We are well staffed, for now."
The king's boots were next to be pulled on, then Sulros settled a formal robe over the king's shoulders. He took a firm hold of Thranduil's forearm in an unnecessary move to help him to his feet, the king clasping his servant's arm in return. They froze in this posture for a long moment, neither speaking, their gazes on the floor, silently communicating their gratitude for the other's survival and receiving strength from each other to face the upcoming trials.
After a deep, quiet breath, Thranduil finally released his servant and Sulros tied the sash about the king's waist. The Elvenking left his chambers without another word.